When sailors adopting uniform indicates hostilities (8)
I believe the answer is:
assaults
'hostilities' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both acts as well as being plural nouns.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'when sailors adopting uniform' is the wordplay.
'when' becomes 'as' (eg 'when I walked' means 'as I walked').
'sailors' becomes 'salts' (salt can informally mean a sailor).
'adopting' indicates putting letters inside (inserted letters are taken on or adopted).
'uniform' becomes 'U' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.).
'salts' placed around 'u' is 'saults'.
'as'+'saults'='ASSAULTS'
'indicates' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for assaults that I've seen before include "Violent or personal attacks" , "hits" , "criminal acts" , "Onslaughts" , "raids" .)